Congressman Bill Shuster, chairman of the Subcommittee on Railroads Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, issued the following statement in response to the President’s remarks this morning regarding transportation and his request to address a Joint Session of Congress in September on jobs:

“Without a doubt, improving our nation’s infrastructure is of critical importance and passing long-term transportation reauthorization legislation is one of the most important steps we can take to improve our nation’s competitiveness, grow our economy, and create jobs,” Shuster said.

“Today [Aug. 31] President Obama offered little more than window dressing to his continued commitment to poorly defined spending and crippling regulations,” Shuster continued.

Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Mica and I understand that in a time of fiscal constraint, we need to do more with less and focus what federal dollars we have on the projects that make most sense,” Shuster added. “To this end, we are working towards a long-term transportation bill that will leverage private sector investment in transportation projects and eliminate the reams of red tape that slow transportation projects to a crawl of keep them on the drawing board.

“While the House and Senate advance their respective transportation bills, the President should focus his attention on eliminating the nearly 219 regulatory actions his Administration is pursuing, many of which are transportation related,” he concluded. “Ending these regulatory actions would have an estimated economic benefit of $100 billion and would help companies create jobs instead of scrambling to deal with new government mandates.”